Pinball

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Pinball

Games that pretended to be something else used to be a really cool thing. "Check it out!" the game would say, "I'm a slot machine!" "I'm a pachinko machine!" "I'm a video poker game!" "I'm a monopoly simulator!"


"I'm a pinball machine," seemed to be one of the more popular choices.

This is what all pinball machines look like when you
fire them up.

Mach Rider

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Racing - Chase


There are things that a racing game can do to make itself stand out in an otherwise vanilla genre. Some incorporate powerups, items or weapons. Some allow you to improve on your vehicle. Some employ novel control schemes. Some just show the game from a different perspective. Mach Rider takes a novel approach to the problem of keeping you interested in what otherwise amounts to bland gameplay: it arbitrarily kicks your ass.

I blame Mel Gibson.

Kung Fu

Publisher: Nintendo
Year: 1985
Genre: Brawler - Side-Scroll

There was something of a martial arts craze in the 80's brought on by the likes of the Karate Kid, The Last Dragon and Gymkata. Ok, maybe not so much Gymkata. Point being that it is generally agreed that in the 80's, everybody was Kung Fu Fighting.

Those cats were fast as lightning.

Ice Climber

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Platform - Top-Scroll

Few games capture the true essence of the Esquimaux peoples of the arctic circle, capturing the spirit and character of the proud native heritage they all bear within them. This game isn't one of them. This is a game about hitting polar bears with a hammer.

As culturally sensitive as the
culture of the 80's required.

Hogan's Alley

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Shooting - Zapper


Growing up I wanted to be a great many things. I wanted to be an engineer, I wanted to own a pet shop, I wanted to be an investment banker (no, really) - a great many things. I never once, though, wanted to be an officer of the law. You know why? Because people shoot them!

We can't all be fearless civil servants after all.

Gyromite (Robot Gyro) and Stack-Up (Robot Block)

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: R.O.B.

What is this?

What? You seriously think I'm going to go on Ebay, Craigslist or any of the other repositories of discarded junk that exist on the internet and elsewhere, dig up an R.O.B. and play one of these games with it? I'm sorry, do I really look that stupid to you? R.O.B. was a novelty item. I had the misfortune of encountering one when I was a kid, and remember wondering what kind of individual would use a robot that played exactly two games (badly) as a substitute for friends.

I don't even...

John's Rating: Gyromite (aka Robot Gyro) and Stack Up (aka Robot Block) 0.0 out of 5.0

Golf

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Sports - Golf


I have never actually played the sport of golf. I'd like to try sometime - I understand that playing golf is a prerequisite for a career requiring any degree of PR - but I just haven't ever had the opportunity. I once hit a golf ball with a golf club and, in an impressive feat of pure beginners luck, hit the post I was told to aim for.

But I'm skeptical of video games that try to take an already relaxing and generally unathletic* activity and turn it into a relaxing and generally unathletic game experience.

*Hate mail in 3... 2... 1...

Excitebike

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Racing - Side-view

If you were anything like me as a kid, you wanted a dirtbike. You probably weren't anything like me as a kid, but you probably still wanted a dirtbike because, let's face it, dirtbikes are cool, and every kid wanted one. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably the kind of person who thinks that fishing is a sport. Of course, my parents didn't have the money to just up and buy me a dirtbike, and given my incredible penchant for falling off my regular bike and injuring myself, I think it's fair to say that they have other motives for failing to get me one. Thus, video games were the closest I would ever get to living that particular dream.

They weren't much for title screens in 1985

Duck Hunt

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Shooting - Zapper

Duck hunt is a classic. Let's get that out of the way right now. The reason that Duck Hunt is a classic really doesn't have a lot to do with how good the game is, but rather the fact that, for most of us, it was the only reason that our NES came bundled with a Zapper.

One duck or two?

Donkey Kong Jr. Math

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Edutainment

The underlying concept of edutainment is that if you're having fun while you learn, you will always love learning, and I'll admit that the idea is sound. At the very least, I know that *I* enjoy learning, which has always driven me to learn pointless things that will never further my chosen career path (though at times I consider deviating to something more cosmopolitan than the legal profession such as concierge, game show contestant, or crazy homeless guy).

I digress. Allow me to introduce you to a sound argument against the proliferation of edutainment.

...

Clu-Clu Land

Year: 1985
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Puzzle - Action 

Over the years, video game design has changed. Back in the Nintendo games, game design was a crapshoot - if you had an original idea, you might be on to the next big thing, or you might be about to discover, to paraphrase Edison, one of the 10,000 ways it does not work. Point being that, in the Nintendo days, many games were released with game mechanics that, in the modern era, would immediately end up on the cutting room floor.

It is now generally understood, for example, that game controls have to be intuitive. This can be a game breaker for nearly any game, but if the controls are sufficiently counter-intuitive, it can contribute to fake difficulty. If it goes far enough, however, it can become the entire game.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present
"Awkward Controls: The Game"